| Summary: | In the post-SARS era, we have witnessed the development of a multi-actor framework for disease control, global disease governance. This framework includes states, international organisations, non-governmental organisations and many others besides. Their actions have been codified in international law (International Health Regulations 2005) and through increasing normative understandings of global disease control. However, decisions about how to manage an outbreak remain a sovereign prerogative. This thesis considers the tensions that might occur between the normative and legislative goals of global disease governance and state conceptions of sovereignty. Sovereignty has, to date, been considered an analytical given in global health, and it is often used as an explanation for a state’s lack of compliance with global disease governance, without further consideration. However, as this thesis will show, sovereignty is not exogenous to the system of global disease governance, but it finds new meaning in this health context, which is produced through interaction between states and non-state actors at the international and global levels. This thesis considers the tensions between sovereignty and global disease governance in three case study states, the United Kingdom, Thailand and Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Through empirical analysis, it will show when states embody the ideals of global disease governance, and when they prioritise their sovereign demands. Through this, a more considered understanding of sovereignty will be shown, depending on context, allowing states to reinterpret what sovereignty means to them in global disease control.
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